


A Matter of Degrees

by sevendeadlyfun



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: AU, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-08-28
Updated: 2010-08-28
Packaged: 2017-10-11 07:25:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 809
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/109914
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sevendeadlyfun/pseuds/sevendeadlyfun
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><em>He can't speak because how will he explain it to her? How to describe a world only a few degrees away from their own, but so disturbingly different?</em></p>
            </blockquote>





	A Matter of Degrees

  
  
  
  
  


**Entry tags:**

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[angelus-centric](http://sevendeadlyfun.livejournal.com/tag/angelus-centric), [fanged four](http://sevendeadlyfun.livejournal.com/tag/fanged%20four), [me and kid](http://sevendeadlyfun.livejournal.com/tag/me%20and%20kid)  
  
  
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Pairing: Fanged Four (Angelus-centric)

Rating: R

Summary: _He can't speak because how will he explain it to her? How to describe a world only a few degrees away from their own, but so disturbingly different?_

A/N: Written for [](http://kidcyclone.livejournal.com/profile)[**kidcyclone**](http://kidcyclone.livejournal.com/) because she's been blue lately. Done in her **Fanged Four'Verse** and based on the idea put forth in the Buffyverse that there are multiple copies of one universe and that the Angelus we saw in S2 was from another of those universes. Bits of dialogue taken from Becoming (Part Two).

  
"I don't have time for you," he snarled, turning on the blonde simulacrum of a Slayer who stood before him, mewling pitiful threats. If any of this was real, he might be worried. But she was just one more illusion in a world crafted of illusions.

It had taken so long. He'd danced to this insane tune until he felt half-mad himself. Finally, he'd found a way to leave this twisted reality. Leave or die: it didn't really matter. Acathla would awaken and, one way or another, he'd be free.

He wished he could ignore these feeble attacks. There was no Slayer here. Slayers hunted alone. They didn't have friends or families or dates on Friday night. They certainly didn't love vampires. That alone was proof that this abomination wasn't a true Slayer. Just another agent of whatever dimension this was, thwarting his escape at every turn.

He could feel it. His own life and world twisting just out of his reach, so damned close it tickled the tips of his fingers. Adrift in this crazed world, a few degrees off of reality and he could almost see the lighted path. Could almost feel it under his feet. But nothing had worked; no scheme, no sacrifice had brought him any closer to home.

Every day saw some fresh attack, vicious swipes that left him raw. His bright girl, eyes dim with madness. His boy, body broken, sitting sullenly in that damned chair and hating him. Rejecting him. Both of his treasures, rejecting him as they claimed he'd rejected them.

This cursed world was full of lies. He played along, repeating his assigned lines like a dutiful student because he hoped that with enough time he'd find his way home. But time had long since become a luxury he couldn't afford.

He'd tried to burn the world down. He'd laughed as the blue demon stepped up to cleanse this foul place and set him free to return to his family. But the pretender stood against him, blown apart his hope. He'd watched in agony as the charred ruins of his escape fell to the ground.

So he'd waited. Listened, careful and patient as a priest, because no prison is foolproof. It hadn't taken much, in this house of fools, to find the right charm to release him. They'd tried to disguise it with myths of destruction, but he'd seen through their tissue of lies. Acathla would free him.

He turned on the struggling girl-thing and sneered, "My boy Acathla here is about to wake up. You're going to Hell."

She strikes out and he parries, frustration growing. He _doesn't_ have time for this. He needs to jump into the vortex before it closes, before his last way out is destroyed.

She's fallen. Trapped, just as he has been and he knows how she feels. Can hear her heart beating as she struggles to find a way out.

"Now that's everything, huh? No weapons... No friends... No hope. Take all that away... and what's left?" He asks her, but the question is as much for him as it is for this minion.

Her answer is lost in the howl of the vortex. She pushes him back and back, but this is the one time he doesn't mind losing ground to an enemy. She's driving him exactly where he wants to go. Home.

The fierce pull of home drags him from this madhouse, so much like his own world and yet so twisted, so perverse. His vision fades, everything shifting out of focus and then sharpening abruptly. He stares in disbelief as the room he left so many months ago takes shape around him. His own world, just as he left it, at the moment he left it

"Angelus?" Darla turns from her mirror to stare at him. "Darling, what's the matter?"

He can hear the children whispering in the room next door, smell the lemon verbena of his favorite soap, and as Darla moves into his arms, he shudders. He can't speak because how will he explain it to her? How to describe a world only a few degrees away from their own, but so disturbingly different?

"Nothing," he tells her, his voice rough and strange. "Nothing's the matter."

_   
**A Matter of Degrees**   
_


End file.
